Chapter 47

"A road in every direction"

TYPE: Recorded audio feed

PARTIES: Five [5]. One [1] Seeker-type, designate Hawkmoon [hm]; One [1] Knight-type, designate Thunderhowl [th]; One [1] Beastformer-type, designate Ser'ket [sk]; One [1] [REDACTED]-type, designate Rampage [rp]; One [1] Insecticon-type, designate Skrapnel [sn]

ASSOCIATIONS: Clan Krensha, Clan Olfas, Nestpod XXVIII, Hunter Lodges, Vos, Cybertron, Ahamkara, Intermediary-IV

[hm:01] We need to destroy that place. Bomb the planet. Raze it right down to its foundations. Kill those things for good.

[th:01] You shouldn't be here, Hawkmoon. This is impossible. You shouldn't-

[sn:01] The Sssseeker is right. They killed my kin and wore their frames like new shellssss. We must punish them for thisss depravity.

[th:02] Quiet!

[Silence]

[th:03] Ser'ket. Finally. The dragon?

[sk:01] Dealt with to the best of my ability. But we... we need to talk.

[Silence]

[hm:02] What are you looking at?

[sn:02] We are wassssting time!

[sk:02] Fine. Later. Lord, we need to broadcast a warning. Those lifeforms down there...

[th:04] What do you propose I say?

[sk:03] Declare this system a no-fly zone. Cite cognito-hazard risks; memetic danger high. Float a rumour of thought-viruses. Whatever you have to to keep this place clear, at least for the time being.

[hm:03] Those things will just wait for someone else to close in. That signal down there was their handiwork; they're going to draw mecha in eventually.

[th:05] No. You don't get to talk.

[hm:04] Oh I'm sorry, am I making too much sense? They're going to spread. They're going to kill.

[rp:01] You get him, Winglet.

[th:06] I said quiet!

[Silence]

[th:07] We'll broadcast. For now. Skrapnel-

[sn:03] What of our retribution?! My kin are dead! Your kin are dead!

[th:08] As is the dragon responsible.

[sn:04] And what of thossse who wielded it?

[th:09] ... Someone get her out of here.

[hm:05] What... What the frag are you on about? Wielded it?! I killed the fragging thing! Thunderhowl-

[th:10] No. You've done enough. Get out of my sight.

They assigned her to an isolated cabin, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Which was fine, if Hawkmoon were being honest. She needed time to sort herself out, to get her frazzled mind and jumbled memories back into shape. It felt as if Aiakos had dipped her claws inside her head and stirred everything about - because nothing felt right since the dragon had drawn her dead self out.

Or maybe that was just the hollow feeling of having finally avenged herself.

A dragon was dead. A dragon dead by her hands, her blade, her will. A part of her reveled in the victory. Another worried that it wasn't the end, that Aiakos' blood price could strike at any moment, weregild for a wish granted under duress. Mostly Hawkmoon thanked her good fortune that she was still alive, that she could still see straight, that she was still just her.

And Augur-

"Thank you," Hawkmoon whispered.

Augur raised his head from his paws. "Are you speaking to me?"

"Naw, the other phantom fox who won't leave me alone."

"Ah, the shattered sanctity of gratitude. Is nothing sacred anymore?"

Hawkmoon resisted the urge to roll her optics. "I'm being serious, though."

"You are?" Augur made a show of looking around. "Where is this spare Verunlix you favour?"

"I said fox."

"And my people are 'foxes' by your estimation, are they not?"

"Augur."

"You are most welcome," he replied, lowering his head back down.

"I..." Hawkmoon hesitated. "I, um... I mean it. Thank you. For helping me. For... saving me from those things."

"Merely an act of mutual benefit."

"Call it what you will, I'm still grateful."

"So I have deduced." Augur yawned. "Save your gratitude for someone who needs it, Seeker."

Hawkmoon made a face. "I can't tell if you're being unpleasant or not."

"Mm."

"'Kay then." Hawkmoon laid back down. The cabin's sole berth was an old, dented thing, not quite so comfortable as the one in her quarters above the Krenshan Holdfast, but she was tired enough to look over that mild inconvenience. Even a bare floor would have worked. "So."

"So," Augur echoed.

"We did it."

"Indeed."

"We killed her."

"Yes."

Hawkmoon paused. "Did... did you know it was Aiakos beforehand?"

Augur didn't answer for a little while. "... I had my suspicions."

"And you chose not to share them."

"I did not consider them worth considering."

"I think it was only because it was Aiakos that I managed to kill her," Hawkmoon admitted. "If that had been any other dragon..."

"But it wasn't."

"... No. No, you're right. It wasn't." Hawkmoon peeked at Augur. He was comfortably sat by the end of the berth, all curled up. "I... I made a wish."

"I know," Augur replied.

"Figured. But do you know what I-"

"Yes."

"Oh." Hawkmoon tried to pretend that was okay. It was a hard act to keep up. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Augur inquired.

"Yeah."

A beat. A second. A minute. A breem.

"I have misjudged you," Augur quietly admitted.

Hawkmoon nodded to herself. "Is that a bad thing?"

"You are deserving of more credit than I have previously granted you. I am learning the error of judging your worth too quickly."

"Uh, thanks?"

"I can rescind the sentiment if you would like."

"No no, I'm just..." Hawkmoon trailed off. "Fucking hell."

"Is something the matter?"

"We're alive."

Augur took a moment to answer. "Yes, Seeker. Yes, we are alive."

"I'm just... I just had to say that. It makes it more real, somehow. We're alive." Hawkmoon offlined her optics. "We shouldn't be alive."

"Perhaps not. We may count ourselves exceedingly fortunate in that regard."

"I shouldn't be alive. She... Aiakos had me. She had... she had a part of me." Hawkmoon resisted the urge to gulp, to breath, to do anything that felt natural - because nothing ever would. "I'm in freefall now."

"You are referring to your... condition."

"Yeah."

"You changed. How sudden was it?"

"Very, but at the same time not. It... I could feel it. Didn't know what it was. Didn't realize it was there, but I felt it. It's like... it's like when you feel light-headed but you don't notice it until you get up too fast and your head fills with fluff."

"I'm not familiar with the sensation."

"Yeah well, you're a quadruped."

"Ah."

There was a short period of silence after that, stretching between them.

"It's getting worse," Hawkmoon whispered.

"Your condition."

"Augur, I thought I was someone else. I'm starting to lose it. I need... I need a cure."

"A cure? No," Augur replied. "A cure would be to reinstate you in mortal flesh. We need only a remedy to stave off the negative symptoms."

"That's what I meant."

"Your use of terminology was misleading. I only corrected you."

"Well, it's not helping."

"... Perhaps not." Augur made a sound like a sigh. "I don't know what you expect. I have no miracle remedy."

"But surely you know someone who does?"

"My people are dead or in hiding. The Taishibethi are gone."

"What about the Tenerjiin? Would they be able to help?"

"We are not approaching those beasts," Augur growled.

Hawkmoon offlined her optics. "I'm dying, Augur. Dying slow, but dying all the same. And it's… it's painful in the worst ways. I need help."

"You won't trust anyone to help."

"I won't trust anyone to understand. There's a difference."

"The distinction does not matter. You lack trust. You hoard an overabundance of grief, anger, envy. Those traits will not draw in sympathisers."

"So that's it? Nothing?"

"I will search around," Augur muttered. "I will peer through the Ley Lines and glean what I can. If there is a remedy to be found, I will inform you immediately."

"And right now?"

"Now you must rest. We are alive. We are the victors of this hunt. Bask in that. Know that you put a terror to rest."

"She was going to kill people," Hawkmoon muttered. "Kill people."

"You seem surprised."

"Augur, she..." Hawkmoon paused, pretended to take a deep breath. "She was a dragon. She's not... she wasn't a person. Not really. No values, no morality, nothing but hunger with a sly streak. But she still..."

"You're hesitating."

"I'm wondering whether it was right."

"To prevent an unjust genocide?"

"Okay, pause there - is there ever a just genocide?"

"One performed against the Arch-Fiend's armies."

"Ah. Which one?"

"Which Arch-Fiend?"

"Yeah."

Augur made a curious sound. "Does it matter?"

"That's... okay, that's fair. I... think." Hawkmoon sighed. "Okay. Okay. Okay, what-"

"Are you alright, Seeker?"

"Name please."

"Are you alright, Hawkmoon?"

"That's better. Uh, I don't... I'm not sure." Hawkmoon hesitated. "That was my second wish for Aiakos."

"... Ah. I see now."

"She saved me from the Hive. Brought me to you, all the way on that other side."

"I am aware."

"Do you not..." Hawkmoon propped herself up on her elbows. "Are you seeing what's wrong there?"

"You feel guilt."

"Just a little. I shouldn't, but I do."

"And do you regret your actions?"

"Fuck no."

"Then leave it to rest, Hawkmoon. And fetch some rest yourself."

Hawkmoon begrudgingly laid back. "You're not making me feel better."

"I am here to guide you. Not to comfort."

"Aftpipe."

"If you say so."

Hawkmoon quirked a smile. She clasped her servos together, resting them over the canopy of her cockpit. She made a point of relaxing her wings, her spinal strut, her EM field; Augur hadn't been far off the mark. She needed to catch up on... if not sleep, then recharge. Her mind needed it, bad - to grab enough downtime to sort things out, put everything back where it was supposed to be and not...

Not regress back into the living nightmare Aiakos had roused within her own memories.

For once the off-cycle passed without a problem, without even the barest hint of a dream - Exo-based or otherwise. Hawkmoon rose up, peeked her helm out of her room and, upon finding a distinct lack of guards to stop her, gingerly left her room and looked around the abandoned floor until she found the washracks. Once under the faucets she vented deeply and relaxed into the heated spray, her plating loosening around her. Dirt, soot and grime puddled beneath her, along with the residue of what could have been blood. Dragon blood. Her own blood - energon she'd drawn herself. Or Adria in her had, at least. Hawkmoon scrubbed it all off as best she could, wiping it all away and tenderly poking around her half-repaired wounds. Nothing serious, thankfully, but they were bothersome enough to ache over the next couple of orns.

At some point she heard the clanking footfalls of someone else coming in, but Hawkmoon steeled her resolve and tried to ignore it, already in the midst of wiping down her wings as she was. It made her miss Cyberwarp that little bit more - which led to some more self-directed anger for even thinking about it that way.

"You sure you want to be out?"

Hawkmoon glanced over her shoulder. Rampage was in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms folded and his many other weaponized kibble-limbs folded over his back. "Oh," she said without vigour. "Hey. Just needed to wash. Clear my head, y'know?"

"Now that's confidence," Rampage drawled. His faceplates were a horror all on their own; inhuman and brutish and wicked, all mandibles and teeth and cold, cold green optics.

"Am I not allowed to wash?" Hawkmoon nonchalantly challenged, though her spark had begun to thrum that little bit faster. "Figured I was in deep scrap, but that?"

"I'm not saying anything, Winglet," Rampage said. Hawkmoon didn't believe him for a second. "Just that, ah... seeing you could bother some mecha - not to name names. Could sway some decisions in definitive ways."

"What decisions?" Hawkmoon turned around, her wings flaring behind her.

"Oh, just what to do with you," Rampage explained with a shrug. He looked her up and down and he was slow about it, knowing she was watching. She felt the sudden urge to punch him - and only just held herself back. "I'm starting to believe what they say about Seekers."

"And what's that?" Hawkmoon curtly asked. It was bait and she knew it. Too obvious. If it had been a test then she'd failed - but it wasn't a test.

Just a twisted mech trying to find some fun.

Rampage smiled. It was all teeth. "You're always a lot to take in."

Hawkmoon schooled her features. "Not interested."

"Quick to presume, aren't you?"

"Just setting boundaries."

"Boundaries," Rampage snorted. "You've been breaking boundaries left, right and centre, Seeker. I'm not blind to it."

"Noted." Hawkmoon turned off the spray. She moved to leave. Rampage's servo shot out, closed around her arm and tugged her back - and she had the other servo on him in an instant, her wrist-blade prodding the steel of his chin.

"Easy," he chuckled darkly. His optics glinted dangerously. "That would be a mistake, what with where you're standing right now."

"And where's that?" Hawkmoon hissed. She pulled on her arm but he wasn't letting go. "Anywhere but your lap?"

Rampage's chuckle evolved into a full bout of dry laughter. His mandibles danced, clicking and snapping together with a steady staccato rhythm. "Not what I meant," he said, calming down, "but I wouldn't complain."

"I said-"

"I heard what you said," Rampage snapped. His entire demeanour shifted in an instant - from amusement to hostility. Hawkmoon activated her combat protocols but refrained from sinking her wrist-blade into his helm. He had servos fit to rip an Ogre apart and she wasn't quite keen on losing an entire limb for her troubles. "I don't give friendly advice often, Winglet, so listen well. You did something dangerous and the beast-lord isn't a happy mech. Your presence, your intervention, it all raises questions and none of the answers we're getting are the kinds that make us comfortable."

"... Yeah, so?" Hawkmoon pressed. "I've picked up on that already. Is there anything else to this?"

Rampage shot her a distasteful look. "You're playing with fire, Winglet."

"I have that freedom."

"Unless the beast-lord decides otherwise."

"Thunderhowl isn't my boss."

"I thought you were an initiate? A Krenshan-wannabe?"

"I've re-evaluating my options."

"Well you won't have many, unless you start playing nice."

"That a threat, Insecticon?"

Rampage's smile returned. "Whoever said I was an Insecticon?"

Hawkmoon narrowed her optics. "Whatever the frag you are, let go. Or..." she pressed her blade closer, splitting the plating over his chin. A couple of beads of energon ran down the length of it, dribbling over her knuckles.

"The beast-lord," Rampage pointedly continued, still grinning in his own monstrous fashion, "is liable to take a poor outlook on your... situation. He's, ah... grieving."

"I'm aware."

"Then you should also be aware that we will be making port soon. For the sake of the wounded." Rampage rolled his optics.

"Where?"

"A little known world named Penchant. Organic-infested, organic-ruled, organic-friendly. It's a quaint place. Easy to find good business there. Or pleasure. Whatever turns your gears."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm being nice, Seeker." Rampage leered at her. "You should welcome that. Some might even say it would pay to keep me nice."

"Let go."

Rampage let go and stepped back. "Stay out of trouble. Or don't, so long as you make a show of it. I'll be watching either way."

Hawkmoon shouldered past him, headed straight to her room. She didn't look back.

It took a couple of joors of aimless waiting, but eventually someone came by to fetch her. Hawkmoon felt the low hum of the frigate rippling out of warp, the sudden clench of stalled momentum found within the barest tremble of the ship's hull, and then the way it smoothly resumed its course - sailing for somewhere hospitable. The door to her room rang only a few moments later. Hawkmoon shared a look with Augur before answering it, opening it wide.

Ser'ket stood on the other sight. Her spear was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't to say she looked anymore amiable than last time Hawkmoon had met her. The beastformer's optics were sharp and bright, her faceplates strangely gaunt, and her claws tapped, tapped, tapped against her own plate.

"Seeker," she greeted neutrally.

"Dragon," Hawkmoon replied with just as much fervour.

Ser'ket's features tightened into a scowl. She stepped back. "Fine. Then I won't."

"Won't what?"

"You're throwing away your future, Seeker." Ser'ket turned to leave.

Hawkmoon sighed. "Wait! Wait, wait. Just..."

Ser'ket stopped in place and waited.

"Frag." Hawkmoon looked down the hall. Still no one was about. The ship must have been operating on a skeleton crew; it felt so... stiflingly empty without the hubbub of people. Tense. Wrong.

Wrong.

That was how she knew something had changed in her, because Hunters weren't supposed to like people.

"... I'm sorry," Hawkmoon begrudgingly said at length. It was hard getting the words out. Unnecessarily so. "I shouldn't have... I apologize. I shouldn't assume. Even if those-"

"Behave," Augur murmured. Hawkmoon quickly stopped talking.

Ser'ket turned around. Her faceplates were a cold mask, and near as bestial as Rampage's own features besides. She looked like someone who'd embraced the primal lifestyle a little more than Hawkmoon thought was reasonable. "I have some questions," Ser'ket carefully announced, "and some answers, should you want to make inquiries of your own."

"So you want a debriefing?"

"Of sorts. Have you any misgivings that need settling?"

Hawkmoon hesitated. She took a step back, wordlessly inviting Ser'ket in, and sat on the edge of her berth. Ser'ket took up position just within the doorway, wings folded tightly against her back. "I have one question," Hawkmoon replied, "and just the one - for now, anyways."

"You want to know what I am," Ser'ket guessed.

"Pretty much."

"I think you already know."

Hawkmoon slowly nodded. "But I'd like to hear it from you anyways," she said. "Just so I know we're on the same page."

"What is there to tell? I am of the lodges-"

"Krenshan?" Hawkmoon inquired.

Ser'ket slowly shook her head. "There are many holdfasts," she explained, "and many clans, but all are of the lodges. Hunting lodges. Sects of Onyx Prime."

"I know that, just-"

"No, I am not Krenshan. I..." Ser'ket paused. Something crossed her faceplates - but it passed far too quickly for Hawkmoon to make sense of it. "I am not of any individual clan. I am kin-distant, blood-guest, pack-honoured-wanderer. A stranger with ties."

"O… kay."

"And you are aware of what the lodges practice?"

Hawkmoon hesitated. "You hunt down alien critters and scan their carcasses after you're done, so you can wear their shapes. In addition to your normal alt-modes, I hear."

"Only if you have an alternative-mode prior. I am kin-born, naturally sparked below the roof of the lodges. I was part of the lodges from the first moment I onlined my optics. I am kin."

"Yeah, I'm picking up on that," Hawkmoon drily pointed out. "You're born for this, I get it."

"Do you?"

"I do, actually. You went and killed a dragon for your codex thingy, didn't you?"

"Are you so sure?"

"Well it's either that or you're the child of a dragon. Or a Predacon - but I'm pretty sure I read that those things are extinct. So yeah. You killed one."

Ser'ket grimaced and looked away. "We call them Provings," she murmured. "I won't tell you they're sacred or that... that we do it to please Onyx Prime, because we don't. There's nothing more to them than the material worth you gain and the emotion you assign to it. There is merit in it, between glory and understanding one's own limits. The hunt is to be treated with the respect it deserves; the beast must be slain and sampled and utilised however it can be. It must be something special in the sparks of whomever embarks on the Proving. The hunt must have a purpose."

Hawkmoon raised an optical ridge. "Yeah?"

"You're not wrong," Ser'ket said at length, "but it was deserved."

"On whose end? Yours? Or the dragon's?"

Ser'ket made a face, fangs flashing. "Does it matter?"

Hawkmoon studied her for a moment, then shrugged and sighed. "Hell. I guess not. Fragging hate the damn things; can't understand why the universe keeps throwing them my way."

"Have I satisfied your curiosity?"

"I mean, you gave me the most long winded answer possible. But I still don't know the whys and the hows."

Ser'ket narrowed her optics. "That's my business."

"Then why tell me what you already have?"

"Curiosity of my own."

"Oh?"

"No. Not yet. I haven't received my answers."

"Fine." Hawkmoon leaned back and held out her arms. "Ask, o inquisitor. I don't have anything to hide."

"Liar," Augur laughed. He curled up by her side, somehow more a comforting presence than even the feel of a real wall at her back. "But I won't complain."

Neither will I, Hawkmoon almost said. A soft smile threatened to rise to her faceplates; it took all her resolve to press it down until the urge passed.

"How the frag did you reach the dragon before us?" Ser'ket demanded.

The whole not-smiling thing became a whole lot easier after that.

"I, uh..." Hawkmoon hesitated. "I just sort of... how crazy an answer will you believe?"

"Will I believe?" Ser'ket blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You know dragons, yeah?"

"Oh I don't know, do I?"

"Primus I love snarky people, you keep that up. Anyways, I, uh," Hawkmoon hesitated. "I just... I just thought about it and voila - it happened."

"You just... thought about it," Ser'ket deadpanned.

"In a roundabout way, yeah. I was thinking really hard too. Swear I must have had steam coming out of my audials and all. Could taste the dreams on the tip of my glossa. Like burnt rubber. Eurgh."

"Answer the question," Ser'ket growled.

Hawkmoon crossed her arms and cocked her helm to the side. "Don't believe me?"

"I answered your question. Now answer mine."

"Are we playing that game, are we? A barter. Okay, I like that. But I've already given you what you want."

"No. No, you haven't."

"Yes I did." Hawkmoon huffed. "I used my mind to beat you there, to that... that prison-world, whatever it was. I tracked Aiakos through dream."

"You cannot track something through..." Ser'ket's frown deepened. "'Aiakos?' You knew the dragon personally?"

"Well yeah. It was my second time meeting her."

"And your first?"

Hawkmoon paused. "It was just after I lost my trine," she coldly explained. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't open up."

"You lost your trine - and just happened to meet a dragon? Can you hear how that sounds?"

"It's like people don't listen to me. I just told you I don't want to talk on that count, I told Thunderhowl..." Hawkmoon trailed off with a shake of her helm.

"Told Thunderhowl what?" Ser'ket demanded.

"Oh, just that I needed to kill a dragon."

"Dare I ask why?"

"You want the honest answer or the romantic one?"

"Honest," Ser'ket barked.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Fine. Because her kind have hurt me before. Wasn't keen on letting that happen again. Not to me, not to anyone."

"... And the romantic one?"

"Because I'm that rare breed of upstanding denizen that's so hard to find in this lawless universe of ours. Noble to the core, y'know."

"Ye-es..." Ser'ket scowled. "I'm sure you are."

"And the third answer," Hawkmoon quietly continued after a moment, "is that her being up and about is slightly my fault."

"Slightly," Augur echoed. It took all her willpower not to shoot him a dark look.

"Excuse me?" Ser'ket said sharply.

"... She only started wearing flesh after the first wish. I never meant for it, but I was... I was in a bad way, and looking at a worse situation while at it. She saved me from the latter. Left me to rot with the former. But hey - all's well end's well."

"Seven Insecticons were killed," Ser'ket sternly reprimanded. "It did not end well."

Hawkmoon rose up. "Yeah? And how many more would've died if I hadn't been there to warn you?"

"That beast shouldn't have come this way in the first place. If you brought her-"

"Oh, get fragged." Hawkmoon glared. "Get out."

"You don't want that, Seeker," Ser'ket retorted. "You really, really don't want to antagonize me right now."

"I don't care. Take your blame and go bother someone else."

"You think this is about blame?"

"It must be, what with how much you're laying at my pedes."

Ser'ket flashed her denta again - all fangs, all sharp and curved and serrated. "And I'm not alone there - but I'm the only one willing to give you a chance to clear things up, before we jump to conclusions."

"I don't need charity."

"No charity, only a fair chance. Take it before you whittle away what remains of my patience."

"Or what?" Hawkmoon challenged.

"Or Thunderhowl may see fit to contain a memetically-induced security hazard by whatever means necessary," Ser'ket shot back. "You made a wish, Seeker. That's dangerous. For everyone."

"It's under control."

"No. It isn't."

"Where's Thunderhowl now?" Hawkmoon demanded. "He should be the one here - 'cause I don't know you. Starting to feel I don't want to know you."

"You will soon enough." Ser'ket backed off. "We'll be making port within the joor."

"Penchant, I know."

"Who told you that?"

"Rampage."

A frustrated look flashed across Ser'ket's faceplates. "No, stop," she snapped. "Do not engage with that mech."

"I don't plan to."

"I mean it."

"So do I."

Ser'ket studied her a moment longer before turning on her heel and marching out. Hawkmoon moved to close the door behind her.

"Charming," Augur drily supplied.

"Oh, shut up," Hawkmoon grumbled.

"Sometimes I wonder how you have survived so long, with a pride so prickly as yours."

"Augur, now is not the time."

"It never is, Hawkmoon, but I will offer my advice all the same: it does not cost to listen."

"I don't have the patience to hear out every fool with an opinion."

"Then what does that make you if not yet another fool?"

"Augur-"

"Listen closely next time. These people may speak a different language-within-a-language than that which you are used to, but it is not a difficult skill to pick up. Listen."

Hawkmoon ignored him. Sometimes it was the only way to get him to shut up; all he wanted, she wagered, was engagement - more excuses to spew his own spiel.

There was a ping from her door, just some joors later. Hawkmoon rose up to answer it, with a snarky quip ready to let fly - but it was forgotten the moment her optics settled on the Insecticon on the other side, hopping from pede to pede and worriedly looking up and down the hall. She recognized him, too.

"Uh... Springbolt, right?" Hawkmoon guessed. "Didn't we meet back-"

Springbolt barely glanced at her. "We have docked. You have been requested."

"Oh. So Thunderhowl finally has something to say?"

Springbolt shrugged. "I wouldn't know, Seeker. Come along."

Hawkmoon frowned. "Springbolt?"

"Your presence has been requested."

"Why?"

Springbolt looked at her. "I said I would not know. It is not my business to know."

Hawkmoon didn't like that. Not one bit. "Where?"

"Seeker-"

"Where, Springbolt?"

"Ashore, yes? Hula-Fer-Teriin. City of white glass, city of Penchant." Springbolt gave her a blank look, as if to say what were you expecting? "You are wanted."

Hawkmoon suppressed a grumbling complaint and glanced back at Augur. He tilted his head quizzically. "Fine," she said at length. "Fine. Lead on, I suppose."

They walked and walked and- Hawkmoon was quick to discover something was amiss, because either the frigate had grown or Springbolt was leading her down a convoluted route that she suspected had something to do with avoiding anyone and everyone. Which, if it was Thunderhowl that had called for her, just didn't make any plain sense. A whole bunch of alarms went off in her processor. Hawkmoon stopped at one point, stopped with every intention of turning back around and heading back to her room, but Augur said-

"I'm bored, Hawkmoon. I want to see how this unfolds."

And it was thus decided.

"If I get shanked I blame you," Hawkmoon murmured.

Augur trotted ahead of her. "Of course," he called back. "Why would I expect anything else?"

Springbolt slowed. "What was that?" he rasped.

Hawkmoon eyed him warily. "Nothing," she said quickly. "Just... nothing."

"Well keep your nothings to yourself," Springbolt snarked, "and come along."

Hawkmoon reluctantly did just that - but for the relief of feeling prepared, of feeling secured, she plucked out the hilt of her Nullblade and held it behind her back. Springbolt didn't notice, engrossed as he was in navigating for them whatever path took them out of sight of the rest of the crew. Eventually they came to an airlock, already hooked up to a loading dock, and Springbolt keyed in the command to let them out. Hawkmoon was almost certain it wouldn't work, that surely someone in security had noticed their trek through the ship and was going to lock them inside, but no. The doors hissed open; they stepped through, stepped out into the spaceport of another alien world.

It looked a whole lot more civilized than the last one Hawkmoon had visited.

"Penchant," she whispered to herself. The docking chamber led to an automated checkpoint, and all Springbolt had to do was transmit access codes for it to open up at their approach. It fed into the larger spaceport arrivals-terminal - and it was nigh on abandoned. The only living things Hawkmoon spotted therein were a couple of Eimin-Tin guards, both of them armed and armoured and staring at her and Springbolt with uncomfortable amounts of suspicion. "I know these people."

Springbolt either ignored or didn't hear her. He stiffly marched on, pede-claws clacking on the pristine white ceramic-steel blend floor. The exit loomed ahead, flanked by those same guards, and just as they were about to reach it one stepped in their way, loosely holding a sleek, long-nosed energy weapon vaguely reminiscent of a Hive soulfire rifle.

"Wait," it said in its own language - Irinum, Hawkmoon recalled. A sibilant dialect, lyrical if a little overly hissy. "This one isn't like the others."

"She's with me," Springbolt replied. His grasp of the language was flawed, butchered, but it there regardless. The Eimin-Tin facing them twitched its tail and tilted its head; the local variant of a scowl, maybe?

"Whose clan?" the Eimin-Tin pressed.

Springbolt briefly glanced at her. "Krensha."

"She doesn't look like it."

"I'm a new recruit," Hawkmoon interrupted. "New-ish."

The Eimin-Tin glanced at its comrade. "I will have to log this in."

"Then do so," Springbolt irritably growled. "We have business beyond these walls."

The soldier reluctantly bowed its head and stepped aside. Springbolt marched past, with Hawkmoon quick to follow.

Out into the wider city they delved. Hawkmoon took in the sights with quiet wonder and subdued relish; though it had nothing on the quaintly majestic allure of Khidai-Viis, it was a spectacular place all the same - spectacular in the sense that it was a living city not under the shadow of imminent destruction. Cybertron had spoiled her, but the Tai systems had rearranged her thoughts on the matter back to the way they used to be. Plus, it was an alien city. Hawkmoon had known human cities, most of them dead, and she'd been through enough temporary Eliksni scrap-towns to know what was what, but a settlement with history and identity and life - now there was something her own people didn't have in abundance.

A part of her didn't think it was fair. Another part just appreciated the chance to actually be there to witness what it was to live outside of constant war, however temporarily. For the most part she simply tried to take it in stride and only sort of failed.

The Eimin-Tin architecture was aged, but it bore smooth sloping curves and twisting sharp edges - bringing to mind the coiling grace of the very serpents who'd built it. Every building had its own shallow squared crater with quaintly carved stairways leading down, with each street rising above and slithering between like colossal snakes, with patterned blue and white tiles for scales. Buttresses portrayed the likenesses of silvered reptiles along their length, feeding stray rainwater into uplifted aqueducts. Each building that topped over a second level eventually culminated in a ridged egg-like shape carved out of squared foundations - and almost everything was cut from black-veined ivory marble. There were two suns in the sky above, one a dry yellow and the other, the smaller one, a sweet pink. A half-dozen moons floated in the heavens too, nowhere near Luna's size and widely dispersed. A shimmering city-wide energy shield flowed tinted the skies lightly orange, so in her mind Hawkmoon deduced it was likely Solar-based.

There was no road traffic to be seen, with slim gliders above replacing that function, and the foot traffic wasn't quite so bustling as Hawkmoon would have expected. The locals, Eimin-Tin she guessed if only for their numbers, weren't very... outwardly social at a glance, and most ambled along with seeming straightforward purpose. There were other alien sapients present, only a few of any species Hawkmoon vaguely recognized and most others new to her, but they were of the vast minority. There were some Cybertronians too, or rather mecha from former Cybertronian colonies - along with a couple of... other mechanoforms. Only a couple of those were humanoid, and even that was a stretch.

Springbolt didn't stop once, apparently all too eager to leave the massive spaceport behind them. Hawkmoon had to rush to keep up, distracted as she was with trying to at least comprehend her surroundings. The alien influences of the place were startling, more so than Khidai-Viis had been, and largely lacked even the barest signs of foreign influence. It wasn't the centre of commerce and culture, not to the same extent as the entire Taishibethi Protectorate, but rather a fearless demonstration of undiluted Eimin-Tin civilization. Hawkmoon couldn't attest to there being any tension in the air, not with everything being so civil, but it lacked a certain warmth that had initially drawn her to the Tai capital. The weather was fine, the place didn't seem outwardly dangerous, nor were the people seething and foaming at the bit - but she missed that... that unreserved openness of the Tai. The atmosphere of everything's going to be alright.

A lie, sure, but an innocent one made in ignorance - and one that had come from a loving place. The Eimin-Tin weren't nearly so brazenly magnanimous.

At last Springbolt turned down towards a larger-than-most building, where a small group of varied aliens loitered around the tall double-doors - which noiselessly slid open at their approach. Springbolt led the way inside; Hawkmoon gingerly entered, wary of anything, and found herself strolling into...

It was a saloon.

There was no way around it. It was a saloon. A refined saloon, an alien saloon, a richly furbished and outfitted saloon befitting of the well-developed technological and cultural state of the Eimin-Tin, but it was a saloon. It really wasn't a far cry from the kind of establishments she used to frequent in her early days as a Hunter - back before the ramen craze had taken hold. The kind she'd staked out in after every grueling victory and after every crushing tragedy. The kind she'd used to drag her Fireteam to, just to get the others to let loose and have some fun, damn their reservations.

Hawkmoon vented deeply, releasing it as a soft, relieved sigh. This...

This was familiar territory.

This was a slice of future history.

A piece of home.

"Seeker," Springbolt snapped.

Hawkmoon jolted out of her reverie and blinked rapidly. "Huh, what?"

Springbolt stood in front of her, optics narrowed, gestured to the other side of the bar. "Follow," he ordered, and walked away. She almost left right then and there. As it was, only the warm feel of being somewhere almost recognizable kept her where she was, and only the need to know forced her to stiffly trail after the Insecticon - and Augur, who darted ahead.

Sprinbolt led the way to a large booth with a circular wooden table, surrounded on almost all sides by a single curving marble bench, already halfway occupied. Rampage was there, sitting at the centre of it all with a particularly large Eimin-Tin draped over him - Akildn, Hawkmoon recalled; the serpents' genetically-enhanced supersoldiers. Ve looked more like a sensuous hanger-on in that moment, though, all but sitting across the mech's lap and delicately tracing his red plating with long talons.

"Winglet," Rampage greeted. He raised an energon cube, bright blue tinted with streaks of soft pink. Like the kind Sunburst had treated her to in Vos so long ago - the good kind. The expensive kind.

"Creature," Hawkmoon returned, though with far less vigour.

Rampage clicked his mandibles. She couldn't tell if it was an expression of amusement or annoyance, but nor did she really care. He turned his optics - too green, much too green, bad colour - Springbolt's way. "Good work."

"Are we through?" Springbolt barked back.

"You make it sound so filthy," Rampage grumbled - a touch too dramatically to be anything other than for show. "Yes yes, we're 'through.'"

Springbolt made a low growling sound before turning on his heel and loping away. Rampage expressionlessly watched him go before breaking out into a chuckle. "Prickly one right there," he murmured. "'Nest this, nest that'; I don't think he has a selfish gear in his body. Not even for a spot of cable-action."

Hawkmoon's features twisted with disgust. "You couldn't make that more unappealing if you tried."

Rampage laughed again. "Oh, I'm sure I could - if I had the right incentive."

Hawkmoon scowled. "Stop. Just... just stop."

"Alright, alright, if you say so, Winglet." Rampage opened his monstrous mouth in a mock yawn. The Akildn in his lap click-click-clicked and nipped at his neck, veir teeth drawing harmlessly over tender plate and sensitive wiring. Rampage shivered, his optics briefly offlining. "Enough," he whispered.

The Akildn hummed and pulled veir head back, resting it across his chest.

"Ah..." Rampage sighed happily. He looked back up at her. "Why are you still standing? Join us!"

Hawkmoon afforded the other occupants of the booth some dubious looks. There were another pair of Akildn and three other aliens she wasn't familiar with. One looked like a lobster crossed with a jellyfish, another a leopard-spotted spider-faced centauroid with mantis arms and stag-beetle prongs, and the last was a mechanoform in the shape of a scuffed squid-like weapons platform.

"This isn't the kind of company I usually keep," she commented.

Rampage raised an optical ridge. "That so?" He looked at the non-locals. "Get lost."

The centauroid and robot squid begrudgingly slipped away, but the lobster appeared, for a moment, like it was going to try and argue - up until the Akildn laid across Rampage turned veir head its way. It scrambled off pretty quick after that.

"That's a couple of half-decent jobs postponed," Rampage groaned with faux-displeasure. He looked back at Hawkmoon. "I don't much like these kinds of inconveniences - but maybe you're worth it."

Hawkmoon crossed her arms, shifted her weight to her right leg and tilted her helm. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Maybe. But I'm willing to take that gamble."

"Mhm, mhm..." Hawkmoon nodded along. "Alright. What the frag do you want?"

One of the other Akildn shifted at the change in her tone of voice, warily glancing between her and Rampage, but the mech didn't outwardly react. He shuttered his optics as his new friend drew veir hand over his pauldron. "Many things, Winglet, but that's neither here nor there."

"Why am I here?"

"Hm? Oh, I just thought you'd appreciate the change in scenery. You seemed so... unhappy, last I saw you. The mundanity of changeless scenery will do that to you, I suppose." He pointedly raised his energon cube a second time. "Refuel?"

"You paying?"

"Sure, why not. Aspheri?"

One of the other Akildn perked up.

"Would you be a darling and fetch our winged friend here a fresh cube?"

The serpent looked her over. "Seeker," ve noted, as if just noticing her for the first time. "Far from the nest."

"And in need of a refuel, me thinks," Rampage drily added. "Please?"

Aspheri rose up and left without another word.

"You going to sit?" Rampage asked her. It wasn't a question. Not really.

Hawkmoon narrowed her optics. "We really playing this slow and sweet?"

Rampage cocked his helm to the side. "Why not?"

"Because my patience is at an all-time low. You want something. You all but smuggled me out. The frigate has cameras and energy sensors - and you know that or you're more a fool than I thought. Are you a fool?"

Rampage shrugged, almost jostling the Akildn off him. "I suppose it's all in the optic of the beholder," he replied noncommittally.

"No, you probably don't consider yourself a fool. You're accounting for that - so either you've got a way to make sure I don't show up on those sensors or you're not afraid of the consequences. And given that someone will find out eventually, I'm leaning towards the latter."

"Did you say consequences?" Rampage asked, feigning innocence. "Why would there be consequences?"

"So Thunderhowl didn't lock me away?"

Rampage's mandibles flexed; Hawkmoon interpreted it as a leering grin. "Did he?" he mockingly asked. "As I understood it, he sent you away. That's all. Keeping out of sight was the best thing you could do, but it wasn't law."

"You know what he meant."

"I know what he said, Winglet. I don't know how it is back on the homeworld, but out here it makes a world of difference." Rampage indicated to his half-finished energon cube. Hawkmoon waited a moment before pushing it back - just to make clear her own discontent with the smallest of rebellious acts. Rampage didn't seem to mind. Not outwardly. "Thanks," he said, then nudged his Akildn. "Yrsfa, sweetspark, a little room please."

The Akildn shifted off of him. Rampage leaned forward, cupping his cube in both servos, fixing Hawkmoon with a pointed look. "How do you want to talk, then?"

"Straight business."

"Straight business? If you say so." Rampage straightened his back. "You said you were re-evaluating your options. I can give you some. There's a job I have in mind, if you're short on credit."

"So you had me dragged all the way out here just to offer me a job?"

"Well, when my friends here came to me with it," Rampage gestured to the Akildn, "I thought why not? We'll be here for a couple of orns anyways."

"And how exactly do you figure that?"

"Your beast-lord won't move until he's done all he can to ensure his people don't drop dead. Not a step, not in any direction. Not until Her Insufferable Grace has processed through her crew-wide thought-sweep." Rampage's mandibles closed together and interlocked. Probably his version of a thin smile. "That straight enough for you?"

"Getting there," Hawkmoon replied in a neutral tone. "So you're pulling a runner."

Rampage chuckled. "A runner. Could certainly do with one of those. Or, better yet, a flyer. What do you think?"

"I'd like some things made clear first, please, before you go offering me this job."

"Of course, of course, wouldn't want to leave you in the dark," Rampage replied. He watched her closely. "That would be remiss of me, wouldn't it?"

Hawkmoon ignored the barb - even if the implications were a little... offputting. She kept her surprise from showing, kept her faceplates schooled and cool, kept her wings from rising and her digits from twitching. "Were you planning this?" she questioned.

"Hm?" Rampage paused. "Ah, no. No, I believe I told you my friends here-"

"Came to you with a proposal, yeah yeah." Hawkmoon briefly glanced at the Akildn. Yrsfa gave her a disinterested look and flashed a bland smile, while the other ignored her completely. "Seems a little lucky, what with you coming back fresh from another job."

"What can I say?" Rampage said. "I've got friends all over."

"You float this idea Thunderhowl's way? Coming to Penchant"

"Nah, that's his own - and it was always going to be the plan. Desire-eaters can be a messy business, you see, and the Eimin-Tin... well, they're good at cleaning up other people's messes. Aren't they, my dear?" Rampage tipped a digit under Yrsfa's sharp chin. Ve hissed pleasantly, leaning forth and laying veir head over his pauldron.

The third Akildn, Aspheri, returned with an energon cube, another drink for veirself - along with another friend. The newest super-serpent stalled at the sight of Hawkmoon and looked at her with wide eyes.

"What are you looki-..." Hawkmoon started to challenge, before recognition kicked in. "Oh. Hey."

Elulim clacked veir teeth and slid into the booth after Aspheri, shoving the cube Hawkmoon's way. She briefly scanned it for contaminants and, finding none, gingerly opened it up and took a sip. It was just as fine as she remembered, with that little extra electric kick.

"Good?" Rampage asked.

Hawkmoon shrugged. "It's fine."

"So... you two know each other?"

Hawkmoon glanced at Elulim. Elulim ignored her. "Vaguely. What's your angle on this, Rampage?"

"I was just asking if-"

"I meant with this... job," Hawkmoon curled her lip.

Rampage shrugged. "The satisfaction of a job well done?"

"No... No, you're looking for time out of Thunderhowl's sight," Hawkmoon observed. "Or Ser'ket's. Either or; you want to be gone by the time they think to turn your way for a... thought-sweep, was it? Or something else, I don't know. Whatever it is, you're not going to wait around. So you aren't with the Insecticons, I'm guessing."

"Oh you're guessing, are you?" Rampage murmured. "No, not with them. Not quite, Winglet. Not quite."

"But they let you tag along anyways. I mean, I can see the wisdom of Insecticons: big, brutish, don't have nearly as many selfish inclinations as other mecha so when it comes to... you-know-whats, they'll fare better than a run-of-the-mill killer. You, though, you're... you've got some other value, have to, because you're not so shallow. Not in that same sense."

"Maybe I'm just that well-adapted," Rampage pointed out. "Are you done, Winglet? Are you finished psychoanalyzing me?"

"Mmm, no, but if it bothers you so much I can put a pin in it." Hawkmoon flashed him a disingenuous smile.

"Then do," Rampage ordered. His own twisted smile disappeared. "So...?"

Hawkmoon paused. "You offered pay?"

"And then some, if you're interested."

"Gonna need a definitive price - and in writing. With half upfront."

"Quick to demand, aren't you?"

"You said you needed a flyer. I'm a Seeker. If you want to hire the best, you should be willing to pay for the best."

"Hard bargain." Rampage's optics twinkled with patronizing amusement. "Alright then. Fifteen rhenium slates. That's fifteen hundred lodge-space credits, just over two thousand homeworld shanix. Feel free to find a bookie to confirm the rates. Plus, I'll leave you with whatever souvenirs you see fit to pick up along the way. I'm nice like that. I'll give you five slates before we set off, if that's how you want to play. You'll get the rest when we're through. Deal?"

Hawkmoon considered it. She looked down at Augur, making the motion appear as nonchalant as she could, and he looked back.

"I'm curious," he admitted, "and you are in need of compensation; we both stand to prosper here."

Nice way of saying we're broke as fuck, Hawkmoon thought. She reluctantly turned back to Rampage. "What's the specs?"

Rampage opened his mouth to answer, but Elulim beat him to it. "Old world excursion," ve curtly explained. "There are temples in the Undergrowth, ancient settlements and prize wildlife. There are many ways to prosper."

Hawkmoon nodded along. "Anything in particular?"

"Old reliquary, southern hemisphere." Elulim pointedly looked Rampage's way.

"Ye-es," he evenly continued. His servo shifted, firing out a hologram over the table. It displayed in a cool blue alien planet, presumably Penchant, and slowly rotated to show her an orange pinpoint somewhere below the equator. "There's some relics I want to grab. A pre-Rise Eimin-Tin tablet for one. No priceless artefact, I assure you; just an old collector's vices at work. Sentimental value and all that. I'm sure you understand."

"Quite," Hawkmoon replied in a clipped tone. She was already regretting her decision. "So... looting?"

Rampage made a face. "To put it poorly."

"And the Eimin-Tin are okay with this? Apart from those present, that is."

"The Undergrowth is, ah... contested territory. The Eimin-Tin Stratocracy claims only the barest jurisdiction over the jungles below. Natural geology and native flora, you see. It interferes with signals and electromagnetic fields at large. The whole world's abuzz with it down below."

"Ah," Hawkmoon said. "So we'll be going comms-dark. I understand."

"EM-field blind too, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, that's fine by me." Hawkmoon swallowed her pride and sat down at last, arranging herself so that she was still close enough to make a getaway and keeping everyone else in sight, clear ahead of her. "Who's involved? Just everyone present?"

Rampage inclined his helm.

"This official?"

"Official enough that we won't be troubled."

"So a joint-operation?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"What do they get out of this?"

Rampage tilted his helm. "What, you want to raise your prices?"

"Let's say I'm curious."

"Well, whatever they're getting out of this, I'm sure they have their own reasons," Rampage retorted. "So feel free to ask them, Winglet. I'm sure they'll oblige."

The four Akildn did not look obliging.

"Maybe later," Hawkmoon flippantly said. "What's my part in all this?"

"Aerial support."

"Yes, but why?"

"Because," Rampage said slowly, "I would like to have aerial support in the event that it becomes a necessity. And I'd like to have a flight-enabled scout - just to make our lives a little bit easier."

"Why not bring a drone? Or an Eimin-Tin glider?"

"You killed a dragon, Winglet," Rampage pointed out. The Akildn perked up, each one of them, and turned their heads her way. "You said you were the best, that I should pay for the best. Remember? I want aerial support worth its price. And... well, this is just a maybe, but I thought you'd appreciate the chance to... what were the words? 'Pull a runner?'" Rampage grinned. "I'd heard you've been giving the Queen Fragger some attitude. Presumed you'd like to avoid that thought-sweep, same as little old me. To, ah, fly the coop so to say."

Hawkmoon scowled. "That..."

"Yes?"

She didn't elaborate.

"I'm going to interpret that as a 'Thank you, Rampage, you are the best, Rampage.'" Rampage leaned back.

Hawkmoon put her cube down. "And if I refuse?"

"Hm? Then... then you won't get paid?" Rampage cocked his head the other way. "I'm not going to hurt you, Winglet. That would be a tragic waste. We get precious few of your kind all the way out here - and fewer of your calibre."

Hawkmoon glowered.

"Is something the matter, Winglet?"

"... No. Nothing."

Rampage nodded. "Any other questions?"

"When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow. That work?"

Hawkmoon vented quietly. "That works."

"Great. High-grade?" Rampage offered. "To mark the occasion?"

Hawkmoon shook her helm.

"Suit yourself."

"Where do I..." Where do I stay, she'd about to ask, but Hawkmoon quickly decided that was a bad idea.

"Where do you... what?" he asked.

"Nothing." Hawkmoon rose up. "I'll meet you here tomorrow morning. Cybertronian-time or local?"

"Local. Natives work off a twenty-eight joor solar rotation. Where are you going?"

"For a stroll," Hawkmoon muttered, looking away. She couldn't bear to stay in his presence a moment longer. "Need some air."

"Have fun," Rampage called after her, as she walked back through the saloon. It bustled with all the wrong kinds of activity; where Hawkmoon looked at the familiar scenery cast in unfamiliar decorum, she expected to see humans. Exos. Awoken. Risen. Gunslingers and Strikers and Voidwalkers; Hunters and Titans and Warlocks. She expected to see someone waving to her from the bar, a scout she barely knew from Cayde's network. She expected to hear pre-Golden Age music blaring, to feel the heat of too many bodies in a confined space, to see the press of people and struggle with the need to flee, to get out, to get free and run for the hills - because she could only take too much, could only stand the presence of so many individuals for so long.

Instead, she felt none of that. Saw none of that. Heard none of that. And it... was disconcerting.

She was losing herself.

Outside was a little better. Hawkmoon had taken to wandering the streets, finally able to take in the city at her own leisure. No one hurried her. No one bothered her. No one knew her. The city was too large for that. The locals didn't seem to care either. Some Eimin-Tin looked at her in surprise, looked at her wings and the rest of her frame and then continued on with their business. The other aliens, rare as they were, were strangers themselves and spared her no more than a couple of cursory once-overs. It was refreshing.

But it wasn't Khidai-Viis. Hawkmoon found herself having trouble trying to justify that.

She... missed it. The old Tai city. She missed the Tai - sorely. Near as much as she missed home. She missed... she missed her trine. She missed knowing that there were others who understand what she was, who worked with her knowing as much, who lived and-

No. She couldn't think about it. Couldn't...

"At ease," Augur whispered.

Hawkmoon looked at him with a start. She'd almost forgotten he was there.

"Lest you fall," he added slyly, throwing his head towards the pool they were walking alongside. The outer edges of the city had been built upon descending terraces, carved from grey stone and plated in silver, and much of it had been given over to fountains and gardens and so on and so forth. It wasn't the only pool either, just the closest. The water was a deep blue, greenish towards the edges where kelp-like mosses clung to the walls, and things swam just below the surface.

Hawkmoon slowed to a stop and knelt down by the edge. She stared at the shimmering image of the robot on the other end.

"What now?" she murmured, dipping a claw in to disrupt the reflection with a series of ripples. One of the somethings below darted for her digit, brushing past the edge of her claw and swimming away with sudden fright. It had been brown, shelled, somewhat fish-like and as long as her thumb.

"... I don't know," Augur admitted. "We stand at a threshold and I do not know. Not in the immediate sense. But what we must achieve - however distant and unobtainable that future may seem."

Hawkmoon vented out, trying to trick herself into thinking it had been a deep breath. I can't do another brain-interrogation, she wanted to say. I can't stay. I can't... just leave. I don't have the means to make it work. I need money. I need more energon reserves. I need to develop the means to take advantage of my new agency and fragging do something with it. I need a way to make the Hive hurt - or at least make them go away and never come back.

I need to get away from the dragon business.

But she didn't. Say it, that was. A sudden outburst would have looked out of place - and though there weren't quite as many people out as compared to the city's centre, it still wasn't exactly the kind of image she wanted to portray. There was no knowing who it would get back to. No knowing what obstacles it would throw in her path.

"Take the job," Augur decided after some time had passed. "Take it. Take the pay. We will learn what we can and act accordingly, if we find some advantage in it."

"Rampage," she whispered.

Augur lowered his head. "You don't trust him."

She couldn't. There was something inherently wrong with the mech - beyond his warped appearance, beyond his disturbing behaviour. It wasn't just his demeanour either, or the short-tempered beast waiting just beneath. Something was... off about him. Like a miasma of smoke, clouding his presence - and choking those who came too close. Maybe some, like that Akildn of his, liked the taste of it, but she much preferred to breathe clean.

However unrealistic that analogy was.

"Aiakos should have slain him," Augur told her, "yet he lives. Uncommonly resilient, that machine, that... mech. I... do not trust his intentions, but..." he looked back up at her, "I believe he has spoken true - thus far. In a most roundabout sense."

Hawkmoon grimaced. Like a cat playing with a mouse; he's just poking and prodding because he can, because he's got a sick sense of humour. No telling when he's going to start swiping.

"We require security, beyond our own ability to..." Augur trailed off. "What we require is something to ensure that delivering harm unto us is too costly for him and his ilk to even contemplate."

"I could kill him," Hawkmoon softly said, switching to Taishibethi.

"Somewhere in the wild," Augur noted. "Should he prove too dangerous, perhaps. But if we fail and rouse his anger... then what is to stop him from attempting to return the favour? The same of his lover, if that is what ve is. Or any of his... clique."

Hawkmoon didn't have an answer to that. Not a good one, anyways.

"If needs must, we can flee this system entirely."

"And if we can't?"

Augur hesitated. "Leave a note," he said. "Telling not where you have gone, but whom you go with. Let Rampage know it exists. Not as a threat, we cannot risk pushing him to violence in the event that he outmatches us, but as a... a reminder. Leave it before we depart. Leave it with the dragon-shifter. If he detests entreating with her so, then it may serve us to keep her as a safeguard."

That was... smart. Not a particularly comforting tact, but a smart one all the same. It definitely beat outright planning murder. It beat refusing too - because her shanix was running low and she definitely needed the money. The chance to get away from a possible cortical patch too.

"That, then," Hawkmoon quietly decided.

"Then we are agreed." Augur laid down by the edge of the pool and peered inside. "We have been followed, I hope you realize."

Hawkmoon didn't say anything. Just nodded.

"Ah. So long as we in accord."

"Seeker."

"Elulim," Hawkmoon reservedly greeted. She stood up and turned around. Elulim stood only a few paces away, with some of the nearest lesser Eimin-Tin bowed to ver with their crests touching the ground and those at a distance staring at ver with apparent reverence. Ve stood there with veir armour partially drawn over veir form, leaving veir head bare. Hawkmoon kept her servos by her side, even if they itched to draw a sidearm that wasn't there. Old habits and all that; she blamed the saloon. "What does he want now?"

Elulim narrowed veir eyes. Veir dragonfly wings twitched, folded close across veir back. "Rampage," ve said. "Nothing. Or something, maybe; I don't care."

Hawkmoon snorted. "Now that's some loyalty."

"There's nothing to be loyal to. Not in his direction."

"You'll have to forgive me oif having my doubts," Hawkmoon replied. "A long life lived and all that."

Elulim straightened. "I came," ve said slowly, "to check up on you. Out of concern. I see, now, that it was misplaced."

Hawkmoon frowned. "'Concern.'"

"Yes. I thought it was a universal phenomena - a trait of sapient life. Do your Seekers-"

"Fragging Pit, here we go." Hawkmoon rolled her optics. "Go on then. Tell me something about Seekers. Tell me what I already know - or tell something you think you know about them, just to be all judgy. Come on."

Elulim scowled. Ve turned and walked away.

"Ah yes," Augur quipped, "because we need all our companions-to-be unhappy with us. Well done, Hawkmoon; your pride to our rescue once more."

Hawkmoon growled a breathy "fucker" before audibly groaning and taking off after Elulim. "Hey, wait, just- Look, wait, I..."

Elulim stopped. Turned around. Gave her an expectant look. Probably looking for an apology or something. Which ve wasn't going to get - not really. Not in the true sense. Not if there was a way she could split that blame up like a good ol' dinner tab between friends.

"Let's..." Hawkmoon hesitated. Hesitated hard. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Elulim questioned incredulously.

"Well yeah, I... Frag it." Hawkmoon vented deeply and looked away. "In the interest of keeping the peace, because that's important, can we... start over?"

"Start over," Elulim repeated.

"Yeah. Treat it as if we're just introducing ourselves to each other. To restart, y'know? Because one or two of us have obviously... yeah, gotten off on the wrong foot." Hawkmoon briefly offlined her optics. "I... don't... want to cause anymore strife than's already there. We start over, we clear the slate and we keep from each other's throats. Hopefully."

"Hopefully," Elulim dubiously echoed.

"Primus above you're a parrot. Yes. Hopefully." Hawkmoon raised a servo to her forehead and onlined her optics. "That work?"

"... That could work," Elulim said at length. "What did you envision?"

Hawkmoon held out her other servo. Elulim stared at it. "We're supposed to shake."

Elulim shot her a disturbed look before grasping her servo, slightly shaking it from side to side.

"No no, like..." Hawkmoon took hold of Elulim's hand. "Like this. See? Just like that."

"Why?"

"It's just a thing I picked up, like a firm and honest greeting. So - my name's Hawkmoon."

Elulim blinked. Veir eyelids were all but transparent. "I know that."

Hawkmoon resisted the urge to sigh. "Well yeah, but we're starting over so-"

"We're pretending I don't?"

"Pretty much."

"I... I see." Elulim lowered veir head and raised the sharpened sickle-end of veir tail. It looked to Hawkmoon like a shallow, cursory bow. "I am Elulim. Of A'aepheta. I am Akildn."

"I'm a Seeker. Of Vos, I'm pretty sure."

"You're 'pretty sure'?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "As I said, a life lived. Comes with the terri-"

"I thought we were forgetting everything said between us?" Elulim pointed out.

"Uh... right. Okay."

"This was your idea."

"It was, just... fine. Okay. We can roll with this."

"Can we?" Augur questioned with a laugh.

Hawkmoon discreetly flicked at digit towards him, conveying that simple message of please royally fuck off and get fragged. "Okay, uh... I'm a Seeker. Of Vos. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. I hear we're on the same job. I look forward to working with you."

Elulim frowned, veir pupils tightening. "I have to say all that?"

"Well, no, but it would be-"

"I jest." Elulim tilted veir head. "If you desire it so, let no bad blood linger between us."

"... Great." Hawkmoon jutted her helm back. "Grand. If that's all settled, and we're all good, do you mind if I take my leave? I've got some introspection to do."

"If that is what you want," Elulim graciously replied, "but afterwards?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "Don't have a timetable set out."

"And no place to recuperate, I imagine. Rampage made it clear that you would not be welcome with your kin, did he not?"

Hawkmoon lost her winsome smile. "That's my business."

Elulim tilted veir head the other way. "Just so, I offer you the shelter beneath the roof of my temple."

"... Ah. Thank you," Hawkmoon said slowly. She gave Elulim a strained smile. "That's a kind offer."

"You don't like it."

"I'm..." Hawkmoon imagined drawing in a deep breath for what she had to see next. "In the interest of keeping the peace please know that this isn't... done with the intent to hurt or anything, but if this is you making advances like last time, I have to say no."

Elulim's features drew tight. "I see."

"I'm not going to explain why, just that I'm in the absolute worst place for it. This is me cautioning you to please don't - because if so I'm liable to get upset over the smallest of things. Or angry, rather. I don't-"

"I've heard what you said. My offer stands."

"... Okay. Okay. Then... if it's not too much trouble? Thank you." Hawkmoon paused. "Was this why you came after me?"

"No. I wanted to question you about-"

"Later," Hawkmoon said quickly, having caught on. She looked around, checking if anyone was eavesdropping. Elulim slowly did the same.

"Later," Elulim reluctantly agreed. "Should I leave you to your meditations, then?"

"Nothing so... Yeah, uh..." Hawkmoon hesitated. "Or... y'know what, nevermind. What time is it?"

Elulim glanced up. "The suns are falling."

"So... late, right? Which way's that, what, temple of yours?"

AN: Thanks to Nomad Blue for all his help editing!